To what extent should theoretical approaches to understanding the world offered up by the humanities be sensitive to empirical evidence? And how might the humanities be different if its scholars took the demands of evidence more seriously? The emergence of Black Male Studies provides one lens through which to look at these questions.

The following guest post has two parts. The first is written by Timothy Golden, a philosopher at Whitman College and former attorney. The second is by Tommy J. Curry, a philosopher at the University of Edinburgh.

“Black men are dehumanized by a humanities-based academic lethargy that theorizes them to their detriment,” writes Dr. Golden, who explains how the law has begun to take the insights of Black Male Studies seriously, while at the hands of some of his colleagues he has been “dehumanized by the humanities.”

It needn’t be that way. As Dr. Curry writes, “Philosophers have much to contribute… by engaging in the messiness of the real world”—the kind of messiness that may not fit with certain neater theoretical pictures. Such contributions may be towards a better understanding of humans and our relations with each other, but also to “criminal justice cases and the decision-making processes of judges and juries alike,” as he shows with a recent example in which he became “the first ever black philosopher to have their testimony pass the Daubert Standard, the strict criteria US courts use to determine whether evidence presented is of a rigorous, peer-reviewed and verifiable quality.”

When Philosophy Enters the Criminal Court: Black Male Studies as Expert Testimony
by Timothy Golden & Tommy J. Curry

Part 1:
Expert Testimony & Expert Dehumanization
by Timothy Golden

Rarely, if ever, are academic philosophers sources of expert testimony in criminal trials. Tommy J. Curry has changed that. The founder of the philosophical subfield of Black Male Studies (BMS), Curry posits that Black men are dehumanized by a humanities-based academic lethargy that theorizes them to their detriment. Consider being dehumanized by the humanities! Such theorizations, Curry argues, occlude the vulnerability and victimization of Black men, insofar as humanities-based academic theories portray them as embodiments of “patriarchal” oppression both within the Black community and beyond. I’ve experienced that dehumanization first-hand, as I relate later. Curry’s testimony on behalf of a Black male criminal defendant accused of murdering his girlfriend last October (which he describes in Part 2) was effectively BMS in action, disrupting dehumanizing accounts of Black men that pass for knowledge with empirical work that demonstrates otherwise. There are profound legal and existential dimensions to Curry’s testimony.

Daubert and Frye: Black Male Studies Meets the Rigorous Daubert Standard

Two court decisions, Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923), and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), articulate different legal standards for the admission of expert testimony. Daubert is the standard for all federal courts, while some states have retained the Frye standard. In Frye, the court ruled that expert witness testimony is admissible only if it meets the criteria of relevance (does the evidence tend to make a fact of consequence to the case either more or less probable?) and specialized knowledge (does the witness have technical knowledge that will aid the jurors in their deliberations?). Beyond these threshold requirements—which are the same for Daubert—the methodologies used in the field of expertise must be generally accepted in the scientific community. The Frye standard was often criticized for not allowing for more scientifically-based, cutting-edge fields to be recognized as sources of expert testimony. Under Frye, if the proposed testimony was not “generally accepted” in the scientific community, it was inadmissible.

The Daubert standard is more flexible than Frye, allowing for more cutting-edge fields of study to be recognized, but more rigorous than Frye because Daubert invested the trial judge with a gatekeeping function. Daubert requires the trial judge to critically examine the rationale and methodology in support of the expert’s opinion, emphasizing a rigorous analysis of the proposed area of expertise in terms of peer review within the field, rates of error, and scientific testability, rather than mere “general acceptance” in the scientific community.

Curry’s qualification as an expert witness demonstrates that Black Male Studies can withstand the methodological scrutiny required under the Daubert standard and be admitted as a field capable of generating reliable expert knowledge. It further indicates that BMS exhibits the core evidentiary markers emphasized by Daubert—testability, peer review, and identifiable error rates. This development underscores that Black Male Studies is not merely a theoretical enterprise, but a research program capable of producing empirically verifiable knowledge admissible in a court of law. This development is likely to improve the ability of courts to recognize Black male victims of domestic violence.

Existential and Phenomenological Impact of Black Male Studies

Curry describes BMS as an epoché of sorts that enables a bracketing of theoretical accounts of Black men based on pure ideology and theory. The implications of an epoché are significant, for it promotes a listening to Black men. This listening is important because without it, Black male victims of domestic abuse are rejected and shamed twice: once by the abuse itself, and a second time when attempting to tell their story. As a Black male survivor of severe domestic emotional abuse (I experienced suicidal ideation and planning), what happened to me is instructive. See my TEDx Talk.

Regrettably, the shame and rejection from my abuse in private was just as strong as I attempted to share my experience with others—at an academic philosophy conference! That experience was especially frightening, as my abuse in private was now occurring in a public forum.

After the conference’s morning sessions, I was having lunch with colleagues, one of whom is a prominent woman philosopher. As we ate, a discussion began of feminist philosophy and the abuse and victimization of women. During this discussion, I remarked to another colleague at the table that a sort of emotional abuse was happening to me. The prominent woman philosopher apparently overheard my remark and interjected “You can’t be a victim of domestic violence because you’re a man.” I calmly but firmly replied to her, “No. You’re wrong about that. I am a victim of domestic violence right now.” Her influence at the table was palpable, as the table was immediately divided into those who agreed with her, and those who were willing to listen to my experience, which was only the one colleague—another woman philosopher—who I confided in before she interjected. The more I denied what she said to me, the more she doubled-down on her view. Realizing that further discussion would be unproductive, I calmly left the table, and later that day, left the conference wondering why it was so difficult for me to be seen as a victim of domestic violence.

It was this experience that left me in despair. But Curry’s legally-recognized expertise gives me hope, as it should all Black male victims of domestic abuse.

Part 2:
Defending the Defense of Black Male Victims
by Tommy J. Curry

Understanding the Black Male Victim of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Black male victims far too often face ridicule and suffer opprobrium for sharing their experiences of intimate partner violence in the United States. The courageous story of Dr. Golden powerfully illustrates how even philosophers, who comprise a discipline dedicated to thoughtfulness, tend to reject the first-hand accounts—the direct experiences—of Black male victims. In The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood (2017), I explained that despite decades of data showing that Black men were the majority of intimate partner homicide victims among Black Americans from 1976 to 1993, “The hyper-masculine stereotypes of Black males make it almost unfathomable for many onlookers to see Black men and boys as victims of women’s violence or rage” (6).

Philosophical, legal, and policy approaches to IPV have been largely shaped by feminist theories that build from the Duluth model, originally created by Michael Paymar and Ellen Pence. The Duluth model asserts that domestic violence is the product of patriarchal power and the desire by men to dominate women. As such, Duluth inspired theories do not provide many avenues for the recognition of male victims of IPV and ignored the race specific patterns of IPV among Black Americans. This omission was not merely theoretical. Pence (1983) cited Wolfgang’s (1956) research while omitting his documented finding that Black men were disproportionately victims of intimate partner homicide, suggesting a deliberate narrowing of evidentiary relevance to preserve the model’s patriarchal assumptions. Pence and Paymar (1993) were of the view that “most men who live with women who are violent are abusing the women who have assaulted them and can end the violence against them by stopping their own violence or leaving the relationship” (6). As such, the male victim of domestic violence is primarily understood through the lens of a perpetrator. However, the historical record looks different when Black men are examined specifically.

The victimization of Black men by their female partners was a topic of great interest to white social scientists in the early 20^th century. During this period of time, intimate partner violence was framed as a product of Black racial inferiority and the inability of Black men to create stable homes. Often, white social scientists would explain that Black people had more primitive affective states than whites, so jealousy and anger towards a lover or spouse would turn into abuse and direct violence. Henry Odum (1910) argued: The racial proclivity of Blacks towards anger had its “origin in the jealousy over persons” and “this is not only true of the women who fight and quarrel because of jealousy and envy, but it is also true of the men” (246). John Dollard (1937), the famous Yale sociologist, similarly argued that sexual jealousy among Blacks, the result of the Black race’s lack of respect for marriage, encouraged men and women to use violence to enforce loyalty. He noted “revenge by a Negro woman on a deserting husband or lover is by no means infrequent” (277). Similar observations of violence during courtship and marriage within the Black race were also noted by famous Black sociologists such as Charles S. Johnson in Shadow of the Plantation (1934) and Allison Davis’s co-authored book Children of Bondage (1940). However, Black sociologists explained intimate partner violence as the product of segregation and the trauma of caste-like poverty, not the retention of more primitive racial traits.

For most of the 20^th century, Black men were written about and discussed as victims of intimate partner violence at the hands of their female partners. For instance, Marvin Wolfgang (1956) documented that intimate partner homicide among Blacks in Philadelphia involved more male victims than female victims. A finding substantially differing from that of whites during the same time period. By 1967, Wolfgang and Ferracuti theorized that the inability of Black men to be “patriarchal” heads of household gave Black women more license to use lethal violence and aggression against Black men to assert control and leadership within the home. The apatriarchality of Black men became a commonly remarked upon feature within white sociology and criminology during this period of time, and was used to explain phenomena ranging from domestic abuse to sexual orientation (Liebow, 1967; Pettigrew 1964).

Black men were erased as victims of intimate partner homicide and intimate partner violence frameworks following the popularization of the Duluth model. Prior to 1982, Black men were often reported to be victims of IPV and IPH by Black women because this idea served to confirm racist tropes about Black men’s weakness as “MEN.” Highlighting the abuse of Black men by Black women was used to confirm the racist idea that Black households were matriarchal and less culturally evolved than the white nuclear household. It was this shift in the known intellectual history of IPV—rather than my personal beliefs concerning Black male victims—that provided the evidentiary basis of my expert testimony to the court against the presumptions of the Duluth model.

The Facts Concerning State of Louisiana v. Atkins (2025)

On July 3^rd, 2023, Ms. Johnshane Powell was found shot lying on the ground. On September 29^th, 2023, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mr. Kelvin Atkins for the murder of Ms. Powell. Mr. Atkins was charged with the second-degree murder of Ms. Powell for homicide by shooting. The State of Louisiana maintained that the Gwen Law was applicable and decided that Mr. Atkin’s killing of Ms. Powell was in fact an intimate partner homicide. The motive for killing Ms. Powell was officially declared to be a “domestic dispute with a history of domestic violence.”

Mr. Atkins, however, did not have a history of domestic violence towards women in previous relationships, nor in his ongoing relationship with his fiancée (not Ms. Powell). Mr. Atkins did in fact have two previous arrests relating to domestic violence, however, both were initiated by Ms. Powell. The first incident occurred June 23^rd, 2023. Ms. Powell alleged Mr. Atkins committed “simple battery” and stole her gun. The second arrest occurred after Mr. Atkins and Ms. Powell spent the day together with a group of mutual friends on Bourbon Street. Mr. Atkins and Ms. Powell got into an altercation in her car while he was in the backseat. Ms. Powell accused Mr. Atkins of taking her gun and biting her on the ankle. Since the first incident on June 23^rd generated a warrant for Mr. Atkins arrest, Mr. Atkins was arrested on July 1^st, 2023 for domestic abuse battery and for stealing Ms. Powell’s gun, despite her being in possession of the allegedly stolen gun during the second altercation on July 1^st, 2023. Mr. Atkins was released from jail July 2^nd, 2023. Ms. Powell was murdered the following evening on July 3^rd and the New Orleans police claimed that Mr. Atkins was the killer and had the motive to commit homicide by shooting based on his previous domestic disputes with Ms. Powell.

I was called to be an expert witness by the attorneys on defense team comprised of Mr. Ryan Thompson and Ms. Jessica Hawkins to explain how IPV operates in Black American communities and why I believed Mr. Atkins was a victim of IPV. The court found Mr. Atkins “not guilty” of the homicide against Ms. Powell, but convicted him of felony possession of a firearm and obstruction of justice.

Expert Testimony in State vs. Atkins

Philosophers rarely contribute to court opinions that have undergone Daubert scrutiny. Prior to trial, the prosecution moved for a formal Daubert hearing to challenge both the admissibility of my testimony and the methodological reliability of the report I submitted. My qualifications and the empirical foundations of Black Male Studies were explicitly contested in light of the report’s findings. After evaluating the relevance, methodological basis, and reliability of the proposed testimony, the court permitted me to testify. The admission of that testimony reflects a judicial determination that the research framework informing Black Male Studies satisfied the standards governing expert evidence.

The report presented to the court advanced two historical arguments concerning intimate partner violence in the Black community, along with a case-specific analysis of police utilization in relation to Mr. Atkins. First, it demonstrated that the ethnographic and criminological record has long documented Black men as victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and intimate partner homicide (IPH). Second, drawing on a systematic review of IPV and IPH research from 1976–2021 conducted as part of my master’s training in public health, the report showed that national survey data consistently reflect substantial male victimization within the Black American community. Since 2010, the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) has reported that Black men experience twelve-month IPV victimization at rates comparable to, and in some years exceeding, those of Black women. Recent lifetime prevalence estimates similarly indicate near parity. Taken together, these data support the conclusion that IPV within the Black American community is frequently bidirectional in nature.

Lastly, my report wanted to convey to the court that Mr. Atkins was a victim of police utilization and coercive control. Police body cam footage showed that Ms. Powell called the police on Mr. Atkins numerous times knowing he was on parole and vulnerable to reincarceration. After personal arguments, Ms. Powell would call the police on Mr. Atkins claiming he was a threat and stole her gun, but still interacted with Mr. Atkins, or as was the case on July 1^st, 2023 spent the day with him on Bourbon Street. Following Mr. Atkins’s arrest one police officer remarked “she gets upset and she uses it [the police] against you…I understand where you are coming from. It is a mess. It is.” The facts of the case indicated to me that the police were being used to control Mr. Atkins, given his criminal record.

Throughout Black feminist scholarship, there is the presumption that Black women do not utilize police against Black men (Crenshaw, 1991). Beth Ritchie (1996) for example has argued that Black women “not using police or other public services was a conscious decision that most of the African American battered women made…[because of] their loyalty to their community—particularly the men in it” (96). However, numerous studies analyzing National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data not only show that Black women utilize police at twice the rate of white women during domestic disputes (Holliday et al., 2019) but also confirm that the police are the most utilized domestic violence resource by Black women in the U.S. (Lipsky et al., 2006).

Conclusion

Philosophers can have a great deal to contribute to criminal justice cases and the decision-making processes of judges and juries alike. However, such contributions are not the product of eliding evidence or constructing the world and the people in it as daemons of one’s political ideology. Successfully passing the Daubert standard required empirically verifiable methods and outputs that were scientifically testable. Philosophers have much to contribute to the development of our field by engaging in the messiness of the real world and fighting for justice within it.

CITATIONS

COMMENTS POLICY